Rockingham County’s First LEED Silver School

Douglass Elementary School in Eden, NC has earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Silver Certification with the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) and is one of only a handful of such facilities in the area.

Opening in 2011, the 77,442-square-foot school accommodates more than 500 students and features academic spaces as well as a media center, multipurpose room, dining area, and athletic fields.

Rockingham County Schools partnered with Moseley Architects to tailor a one-story prototypical design to support their current needs while also enhancing the design’s environmental sustainability. The concept also incorporated the 1938 school’s original auditorium.

Jim Copeland, managing principal for the project and vice president with Moseley Architects remarked that the project was successful on several levels. “I am particularly pleased that our team was able to achieve Rockingham’s vision for their students with an environmentally-responsible facility and celebrate the school’s history by preserving the auditorium.”

In order to achieve Rockingham’s goal of LEED certification, the school’s insulation, lighting, and heating and air conditioning system were designed to be 32 percent more energy efficient than code requirements. Douglass Elementary also features water-conserving bathroom fixtures that are estimated to save more than 220,000 gallons of potable water each year and on-site stormwater management devices protect local aquifers and improve water quality. During the design and construction process, Moseley Architects and construction manager Barnhill Contracting Company relied on local and regional building materials to support the state economy and reduce transportation impacts on the environment. The project also recycled 94 percent of the waste generated during demolition and construction, which kept nearly 10 million pounds of waste out of local landfills.